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Raw, honest and relentless, Alicia’s debut novel is a heartbreaking and uplifting journey into one woman’s battle with clinical depression. Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, Alicia has created a compelling portrait of what life looks like through the eyes of someone whose actions may otherwise appear inexplicable.

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I would like to thank my brother, Nate Hendley, for pushing me to always write, even when (especially when) time and energy to do so have been scarce. His ongoing support, input, and belief in me have been invaluable. Here’s to you, big brother.

I would like to thank my parents for their love and encouragement over the years and for giving me my first typewriter. I would also like to thank my brother, Matthew Hendley, for modeling the importance of perseverance and good humour when trying to reach goals.

I would like to thank my friends, Alison Beckett and Alisa Sivak, for being early readers of my work and for always reminding me of the importance of writing in my life. I would also like to thank my friends, Christine Kok and Patricia Beck, for listening to me and supporting me in the writing process.

A special thanks to my publisher, Lorina Stephens, and to my editor, Kelly Stephens, for taking a chance on a first-time author and for their work in helping to transform my manuscript into a novel.

Finally, I would like to thank my former clients for teaching me about the courage, strength, and grace required to live on a day-to-day basis with depression. This book is for you.

PROLOGUE

It’s subtle at first. You’re sitting at your computer one morning when you notice that something, just a little something, is there. The difference is so small, so nothing really, that it almost slips by. Maybe it starts in your stomach, nudging at your ribs. Or maybe you notice it in your fingers, shaking just a bit over the keyboard. If you try and take a deep breath maybe you’ll feel it for the first time then, giving your lungs a quick squeeze as they try to fill. This something is so minor, so not anything at all, that you can easily wave it away. Tonight you’ll go to bed earlier, maybe have a bath first with the cubes that fizz. Tomorrow you’ll skip that third cup of coffee and all will be fine.

And you’ll be right. The next morning that something won’t be there and you’ll forget. Until an afternoon one week later, when a bag of Doritos refuses to fall from the vending machine, Damn it, and you burst into tears. The sudden wave of horrific despair will be so hot and wet that it’ll shock your eyes dry. What? … Where?... Why? You’ll demand, as the bottom falls out.

Looking back you’ll know it’s been there for a while now. Weeks, maybe months, patiently waiting. Anyone could have noticed the signs if they’d been looking But why would you want to look for this? Those extra glasses of red wine, the phone calls that went on five minutes too long, the way you’d started looking to the sides of people, not able to deal with anyone or anything head-on.

When the tears come you know that something’s different, something’s changed. You’ve cried before, but always as a release, to get something out. Now it feels like the reverse—like you keep taking things in. Whatever blinders you had on before to keep the outside out are gone. Suddenly everything makes you cry. It’s the careless bits of kindness that really get to you. A neighbour shovelling out your car just because. The coffee shop lady remembering how you like your coffee (large, two creams, no sugar). Your thesis advisor giving you an extension when you have no solid reason for needing it. Anything, everything makes you cry. Mould threatens to grow on your raw, damp face as the faucet opens up. Your empathy for any living creature that could be experiencing pain also kicks into overdrive. Compassion oozes out of you like sweat, until you’re bathed in it. But it’s still normal, it’s still okay. You’ve been under stress at school, deadlines are tight. It’s just a sign to slow down, to take it easy. You’ve got too much on your plate.

And so you go into fix-it mode. You replace your caffeine with chamomile, your e-mails with Enya. You sign up for every yoga and mindfulness class you can get your hands on, and pop St. John’s Wort with your multivitamin. You start saying no and meaning it. You surround yourself with incense, bubble bath, and essential oils. When that doesn’t work, when nothing seems to work, you go see a psychologist. You find yourself temporarily soothed by his reassurances of your sanity, by his pronouncements that all of this, whatever this is, can go away if you stop letting in those negative, nasty thoughts. All you need to do is grab those thoughts at the door and strip-search them for their accuracy. No gate-crashers allowed. And for a while you believe him. You learn to identify your thoughts, to evaluate your thoughts, to replace your thoughts with realistic ones.

He preaches earnestly to you about the importance of change, about the necessity of moving forward, of letting go. He wisely tells you that life is like a river, that you can never step in the same water twice. You go home embracing this as your new ideal, then become paralyzed by the possibility of buying a new brand of toilet paper. Yet you are determined to believe in him, you’re desperate for this to work. You convince yourself that with enough effort you too can have a mind that is sanitized and pure. Until that one session, eight weeks in, when your dreams of wells without bottoms and birds flying into mirrors don’t fit into his neat, manicured space. When you decide that you want to go beyond what is surface, that you want to show him everything else. When you want him to know the core, with the pulp and the juice and the seeds, with the flesh and the muck. When you hold it all out to him but all he can see is the polished skin, shiny and blemish-free.

So you decide to try the chemical route, to dynamite your brain back into submission. You set a date to see your physician, then sit through the whole appointment silent and weeping. Despite this, or maybe because of this, he hears you, finally, someone hears you, and gives you a prescription, your golden ticket. Dutifully you fill it out and put the bottle on your counter, next to the toaster. Your plan is to have it there so that there’s no way you can forget to take the pills. No excuses. The medication can’t work if you don’t consistently take the pills. So why can’t you force yourself to take the damn pills? After three weeks spent staring at the bottle (and one desolate night spent envisioning yourself putting its entire contents down your gullet) you dump the pills in the toilet.

And then things get odd. Wet sand fills your veins, weighing you down. Everything feels heavy—the fork in your hand, your lover’s gaze, the words in your throat. The world becomes filled with edges that bump against you, bruising you from the outside in. And then the forgetting. Not just simple things like names or dates. No. You shampoo your hair and forget to rinse. You put bread in the toaster and forget what comes next. You stare at your lover and forget what the point of it all is. Is there a point? Should there be? What the hell is the point? But the remembering is much worse. Every pushed away, shoved down hurt comes bubbling back up. The remembering is not about the wrongs done against you. It’s about what you so easily, and so shamelessly, have done to others.

Memories long suppressed start to sprout and bud from that hidden place. You remember tripping a skinny boy on the playground in grade three, just because you could. You remember bribing your whiny cousin fifty cents just so that she wouldn’t come to your birthday party and ruin it all. You remember making your little sister sit through the Wizard of Oz and the flying monkeys, just to feel the sweet power of being able to make her cry. You remember ending relationships without explanation and forgetting your parents’ anniversary two years in a row. You remember, you remember, you remember. All of it, each and every ruthless moment of it, was you. Everything that is callous and brutal at your core starts to rot and you can’t get away from the stench.

The funny thing, it’s hilarious, really, is that no one seems to know. Not your lover, not your friends, and thankfully not your family. You’re walking through your days with parts falling off behind you and no one notices the leper among them. Eyes? Gone. Nose? Gone. Ears? Gone. Brain? Heart? Fingers? All gone. You drift in a sightless, soundless, tasteless void but all’s fine with the world. So you go through the motions (you’re great at going through the motions) and try to wait it out.

And then one morning you notice, it’s gone. Where it went and why it was here at all becomes irrelevant. The whole thing goes back to that hidden place, where it belongs. Here’s what does matter: your hands aren’t shaking. You can take a deep breath and fill up the bottom of your lungs. You can hug your friends without splitting in two. You can look at your lover and remember what the point of it all is. It’s a subtle thing, really.

CHAPTER ONE

I’m crouched in the bathroom, the whir from the overhead fan almost drowning out the incessant thudding in my head (idiot, idiot, idiot). I ball my hands into fists and push my fingernails into my palms. I’d forgotten how this feels. Shame and regret shoot down my throat like a funnelled beer. All it takes is one roaring, overpowering rush and I lose my balance.

Um, hello? says a voice from outside the door. Hey? Are you coming out? Is everything okay in there?

I glance at the door, but don’t bother to answer. I can feel my thoughts slipping, unable to find their footing. Fear builds in my stomach, spreading into my lungs. I shut my eyes and try to imagine a stable, peaceful self flickering behind my lids, Look! Right there!, but can’t forget whose hand is on the projector. Frantically I try to remember the steps that were drilled into me from before—feelings are not facts, take slow breaths, deep and slow, feelings are not facts. I slowly stand up again, avoiding the mirror. Don’t think about this right now. Just get out. I flush the toilet once, twice, then open the door. He (whoever the hell he might be) is waiting outside, a concerned look on his face.

Is everything okay? he asks again, as I walk past him to the bed and grab a handful of clothes. You were in there a long time. He smiles, but his grin doesn’t quite reach me.

I pull a shirt over my head. I’ve got to go, I say. I shove my feet into shoes and head for the stairs. This was great and everything, but I’ve got to go. I rush down the stairs and out the front door. The night is black and starless. I walk quickly on the sidewalk, listening to the beat of my footsteps. Why now? Why now? Why now? It had been almost two years since the last time. I quicken my pace, heading nowhere. Eventually I start to jog, hoping that somehow, just this once, I can out-run myself. How could I have been so stupid? When will this go away? But even as I ask, I know that this will never go away, that nothing will ever change. How do you exorcize your own personality? And if that were even possible, what the hell would be left?

I’m such a fuck-up. I’d become too cavalier, assuming that if I acted normal long enough, I could forget what lay simmering beneath my surface. Completing my undergraduate degree had been a feat and should have satisfied me. But having the taste of success on my tongue had made my stomach lurch for something sweeter. With eyes half-shut, I’d entered graduate school. With eyes half-shut I’d finished my Master’s degree. Two terms late, but still. It had been enough of a victory to make me stop looking over my shoulder, to ignore the warning signs, to forget what came next. Going out to celebrate with Patrick and friends after my thesis defence had just been greedy. I’d forgotten how quickly a few drinks could wash away the veneer.

I head away from home, where razors and matches cheerfully beckon. Instead I enter the nearest twenty-four hour coffee shop, to wait out the night. With slugs of caffeine, I try to blot out the memory of Patrick’s confused face and how he continued to give me the benefit of the doubt as I danced with random men. I feel bile begin to rise when I remember how confusion suddenly switched to hurt, like a curtain quickly drawn, as he watched me stick my tongue down the throat of Mr. Hook-up. What adds colour and bite to this particular hell is that I felt justified in humiliating such a kind, gentle soul, that part of me even enjoyed it. After all, focusing on being pissed off with Patrick’s endless affability had helped me stave off the approaching storm, at least for the night. If that isn’t proof that the crazies are back, I don’t know what is. I keep glancing at the clock above the counter, cajoling nine o’clock to come already and rescue me. Finally, it’s here and in my panic I mess up the long-memorized number three times before finally making the connection.

Hello, Downtown Community Clinic, a steady voice says, which only serves to increase my anxiety.

Hi, I’d like to book an appointment with Dr. Miller. As soon as possible.

I’m sorry, but he no longer works here.

What? He must! Dr. Peter Miller.

Dr. Miller retired nine months ago.

Retired? How could he retire? He’s not old enough to retire!

Dr. Miller left the practice nine months ago and accepted a teaching position at an American university. The voice pauses. Perhaps you would like to make an appointment with one of our other psychologists, such as Dr. Green? Many of Dr. Miller’s clients have transferred to her and seem quite satisfied.

You don’t understand! I have to see Dr. Miller! Panic fills my throat, cutting off my air supply. Please!

I’m sorry, but that just isn’t possible. Another pause. Is this a crisis situation?

Not if I can see Dr. Miller! Please!

I’m truly sorry. Perhaps…

I hang up, but continue holding the phone in my hand, unwilling to let go of my one buoy. I know I can call any of the friends who were at the bar last night, any of them, that is, but Patrick. There are several messages waiting for me already, voices eager to have me make sense of what happened. But I also know that at this moment, as I am about to be spun face-first into the eye of a crisis, coolly explaining my crazy self would require more mental mettle than I’ve ever possessed. I need someone from Before, from the past I’ve tried to out-run, to bear witness to my spiral downward. I begin mentally searching for possible rocks of stability but only come up with a few small pebbles.

I consider calling the one person I’m certain has washed his hands of me. Adam. Despite myself, I remember the last time I saw my cousin, almost two years ago. I’d lain slumped and jelly-like on an emergency room bed, while he’d stood rigid against a pulled curtain. I remember feeling Adam’s stare push against my cheek, my hair. The weight of it had pinned me in place. I remember trying to turn my head to look at him, to meet the stare, just for a second, but it didn’t happen. If I had made a move, if I had even blinked, I would have shattered. Old images now flood my brain unbidden, soft and dreamlike—arriving at Adam’s wedding dateless, running into an ex on the dance floor, lurching into the ladies’ room to down a bottle of Zoloft, the blissful slide down onto the cold floor and into oblivion. If I could stop the memories there, all would be fine. But the images that follow have jagged edges—being yanked back into consciousness as tubes got pushed down my throat, the absence of my parents at the hospital, Adam instead standing guard by my bed, rigid and brideless, fiddling with his wilting boutonniere.

Not him. I put away my phone and decide I might as well go home. I slowly unfold myself from the booth, my cramped muscles making their voices known. I know I’m safe for now, the razors and matches no longer seeming so inviting. By keeping awake all night I’ve granted myself a stay of execution—exhaustion envelopes me like a life jacket, helping me to keep afloat.

* * *

I head home on autopilot, the walk from the coffee shop to my apartment never registering in my mind. In my frazzled state, paying the waitress at the restaurant is immediately followed by lying spread eagle on top of my bedspread, with no space in between. No matter. Like a game of hopscotch, the more squares of time I can skip over right now, the better. I stare up at the ceiling, marvelling at how quickly I can switch from bright hopefulness to burdensome despair, with no effort involved.

I no longer trust myself. The last time this happened I made a promise to take control of my train wreck of a life before it permanently slipped off the rails. I swore to pay attention, to be more vigilant of the subtle changes that always came first. A slight increase in irritability or a mild decrease in energy and I would be first in line to renew my antidepressant prescription. I might have depression but by God I refused to be a Depressed Person! What bullshit. If this were true, why had I ignored what was happening in the last three weeks? Could I really have believed that the unprovoked arguments with Patrick, the sudden belches of tearfulness, and the late nights spent mindlessly watching infomercials were nothing more than jitteriness about my impending thesis defence? Was I really that moronic? I lift my hand to slap myself, but instead cover my eyes with my fingers. Being melodramatically self-loathing will not help me crawl out of the void any quicker.

I don’t know how long I am asleep for and when I awaken the dim, pastel light that fills the room disorients me. Is the sun rising or setting? It’s not until I get up off the bed that I notice Patrick for the first time. He is sitting across the room at my desk, a piece of paper in front of him. For the few seconds it takes before he notices me, I stare at his right hand as it grips a pen, white-fisted but unmoving.

Hey, I say. I watch as he turns his head towards me, the pen still in hand.

I was going to write you a letter, he says, holding out the pen. I was going to, but I didn’t know what to say. His voice is unfamiliar, broken, and reedy. What is there to say?

Oh, Patrick, I say softly. I’m so, so sorry. I take a step towards him, but then stop. Do not pass go.

Sorry for what? he asks, his face closed and tight. He stares at me, his loud breaths filling the room. Do you have any idea what you’re sorry for, Beth? Could it be for humiliating me in front of all of our friends? Or for treating me like shit for no apparent reason? Or maybe for making me worry all night about your safety? Or is there something else you’re sorry for? He grabs the paper on the desk, crumbles it into a ball, and tosses it on the floor, discarded.

I’m sorry for all of it. For everything. As I look at his face, the ramifications of what I’ve done crash over me and I feel dizzy from their weight. I take a step backwards and sit down on the bed. Patrick, please, please, what can I do?

Make it so last night never happened. Make this all go away, he says quietly. He glances at me and I can’t see myself reflected in his eyes. Where did I go? And make yourself not be such a slut.

I nod repeatedly, trying to buy myself the time I need to change what is happening. Maybe if I can make Patrick understand why I acted the way I did, I can slow us down before we reach the end. I’m not ready for this to end.

Did I ever tell you that I suffer from depression? I ask, looking at the crumbled ball of paper.

Excuse me?

I said, did I ever tell you that I get depressed? That I’ve been diagnosed with depression? I force myself to look at his mirror-less eyes once more.

No.

Well, I do, Patrick. I have depression. Or depressed episodes. That’s what I have. And now I know that another one’s starting. That’s what last night was all about.

I have no clue what you’re trying to tell me here, Beth.

I take a deep breath, once, twice. I’m trying to explain why I acted like such an idiot last night. Why I hurt you so badly.

Don’t flatter yourself.

Please! Let me explain! I say shrilly, moving my empty hands in the air. Not now. Calm down. I try again. Each time I’ve gotten depressed I’ve done something really stupid and hurtful, either to myself or someone else. I pause. This therapist I used to see thought that when I did something dumb I was trying to create a reason for why I felt so bad. That it made it easier for me to think my feeling bad was about something.

And has it? Patrick asks.

Has what?

Has making out with some random guy and then taking off with him last night made things easier for you? Patrick stands up, pushes the chair neatly under the desk, and leaves my apartment.

I wait a few minutes and then check myself for bruises. I find nothing. While Patrick was here and I was waist-deep in images from last night, I felt it all—shame, regret, guilt. But since he’s left, there’s nothing. It’s like Patrick was a poker whose presence temporarily stoked some dying flames, but now that he’s gone, I’m ash. I lie back down on my bed and surrender to what I know is coming.

CHAPTER TWO

I’m alone. I’m alone. I’m alone. I’m alone. I’m alone. The phrase reverberates through my skull like a dial tone—loud, aggravating, yet impossible to ignore. As I lie on my back, I become acutely aware of the mechanics involved in blinking. Open, close, open, close. The more aware I become, the more panicked I feel. What if my lids stop mid-blink and remain frozen in a perpetual stare? What if I can never shut the world out again? I keep my eyes closed and try to focus on my breathing instead, the thought of having my breath suddenly stop oddly comforting.

The interval that follows becomes a blur of night/day/night. At some point I must get up to use the toilet, grab a handful of cereal, or stick my head under the faucet to wash out the cotton that fills my throat, but when or how, I don’t remember. All that stays with me is lying prone on my increasingly sour sheets—too overwhelmed by the relentless monotony of my blinking to deal with the black that has engulfed me. I’ve heard it said that when a woman